Dealing with my Family of Emotions. Anger and it’s Siblings
Clenched fists, heavy breathing, and a rising blood pressure. I can feel it in my chest and my arms, I feel the energy rising up in my body.
It is anger, it often is the very thing that I try to avoid and yet it rears it’s ugly self time and time again, usually when I least expect it. Overall I am a very easy going, relatively calm and centered person. In high school I was actually voted most relaxed, although that may have been due to my extra curricular activities. However, anger and it’s siblings frustration and irritation are what I call my family of emotional imbalances.
Initially whenever I felt these feelings flare up I did my best to try and extinguish the fire. In other words I did whatever I could to bring myself back to balance and calm. This could be using breathing techniques, going for a run, stepping outside, eating something, watching TV, really anything to take me away from that feeling of anger. This approach has got me this far but I realized that this never addresses or confronts why I am feeling angry/irritated/frustrated in the first place.
Like most people, I believed that anger was a feeling that needed to be suppressed, that is was an unwelcome emotion. My relationship with these emotions was to push down, neglect, try to forget the feeling until in one moment all of the pressure would reach a breaking point and I would have a very sudden release of emotion. I had thought that other emotions like sadness, grief, anxiety and depression were emotions that could be looked upon with compassion. If you have a friend or a family member or anyone that you care about that is sad, grieving, anxious or depressed we often have a feeling of compassion, an ability to want to care for and help them. Yet, if someone is being angry or irritable this often rubs us the wrong way and we either avoid the person or if they presses one of our buttons we can then get ignited and return that energy with the same fire which can often escalate the situation.
What I am coming to terms with is that anger is a valid part of one’s emotional repertoire. Emotions are way we express our energy and our feelings and anger is no more or less valid than happiness, sadness, or anxiety. What I am trying to offer myself is the willingness to be compassionate and caring for when these feelings of anger arise. In the same way that we might look after someone who is feeling anxious or sad. I am trying to approach my anger with a sense of consideration and kindness. This concept of being kinder to myself and also not judging the feeling of anger was inspired by my readings and meditations on books written by Pema Chodren. She is a buddhist monk and one of the practices that is offered is to learn to feel everything. Meaning that there is value in feeling my anger. Even before I analyze it, she would suggest to just feel it and if possible make friends with it. Separately, I have also been working on just naming and saying out loud when I am feeling angry.
I have found that emotions are one of those things that just sneak up on you. In regard to my own self awareness I am usually pretty in tune with how my body feels physically. Even as a young child I had a good sense of balance and was naturally athletic. Moving my body and understanding it comes more easily to me. So when I started doing yoga and teaching yoga, I was able to grasp and share the subtleties, the nuances of physical movements as well as the sensations and experiences of the breath. What I continue to work on is being mindful and aware of how I feel emotionally. This I am less adept at. Whenever I am in a bad mood and my partner asks about how I am feeling and why I am feeling that way I blank. I just know that I am in a crummy mood but usually can’t point to what caused it or where it’s coming from. Yet, through my practice of yoga and trying to listen to what I am feeling physically I have noticed that I can translate some of this into my emotional understanding. The practice of being mindful of my movements and my breath has directly impacted my understanding of how I feel and how I relate with others emotionally.
When I am feeling angry it’s still not pleasant and my immediate impulse is to try and get back to some form of calmness. Yet, as I approach anger in these new ways my hope is that my relationship with this emotion and my understanding of myself and where it comes from will slowly start to change as well. Most recently I noticed that my anxiety can manifest as anger. I had a deadline for a project I was working on and as the deadline drew near I found myself getting more and more irritable. As soon as I finished it I was back to feeling whole again. I am only human so I am pretty certain that I will feel angry at some points in my life, but perhaps how I respond will be more compassionate and my understanding of why will be more enlightening.